Russian lawmakers propose to regulate system of financial market indicators

MOSCOW. July 24 (Interfax) - A group of Russian lawmakers has submitted a bill to parliament to establish requirements for administrators of financial indicators, which would be Russian companies with minimum capital of 5 million rubles that determine indicators that serve as benchmarks for the Russian financial and commodity markets.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) would maintain a registry of such companies.

The bill "On administrators of financial indicators" (No. 406984-8) and corresponding amendments to the law governing the CBR (No. 406997-8) were posted in parliament's electronic database. They were authored by a group of State Duma members led by Duma Financial Market Committee Chairman Anatoly Aksakov and a group of senators led by Federation Council Deputy Speaker Nikolai Zhuravlev.

Following the exit from Russia of foreign information agencies, who traditionally provided representative price information (financial indicators), Russian market participants ran into difficulties obtaining the information needed to enter into transactions and meet their obligations on them, a memo attached to the bill said. The authors recalled that, as a temporary solution, the CBR allowed regulated financial institutions to use the information of Russian providers of financial information.

"However, in order to create a modern financial information industry in Russia, a legislative framework is needed that provides for the establishment of requirements for the activities of administrators of financial indicators, as well as procedures for control over the generation of financial and commodity indicators," the authors said.

The bill will introduce a new subject of regulation, "administrator of financial indicators," into Russian law. This will be a Russian legal entity that determines and disseminates (provides) information on financial and commodity indicators.

A "financial indicator," meanwhile, is an indicator determined on a regulated basis that is a benchmark for determining the price of a commodity or other assets, including financial instruments, as well as interest rates, risk magnitude, exchange rates or other values calculated based on a combination of these indicators. A commodity indicator is a financial indicator that is determined for items not removed from circulation, with the exception of securities and foreign currency.

The bill spells out requirements for the shareholders of financial indicator administrators and their management bodies. It also sets out parameters for their internal control system and requirements for storing and disclosing information. The registry of financial indicator administrators will be maintained by the CBR.

If the bill is passed into law, it will go into effect 180 days after its official publication.